BUTTERWORTH 



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BUTTON 



on the insect, which dies and serves as food 

 for the plant. In the north of Sweden, in 

 Lapland and the Alps the leaves are used to 

 curdle milk. In some greenhouses the butter- 

 wort is cultivated as a curiosity. Some say 

 the plant was so named because of the buttery 

 feeling of the leaves; others attribute the name 

 to the use of the plant in curdling milk. See 

 CARNIVOROUS PLANTS. 



BUT'TERWORTH, HEZEKIAH (1830-1905), 

 an American author and editor, whose stories 

 and histories for young people are among the 

 best of juvenile writings. He was born and 

 reared on a Rhode Island farm, received a 

 common school education, and by writing 

 stories earned enough to pay for a course in 

 rhetoric and composition at Brown Univer- 

 sity. With this preparation he went to Boston 

 with the idea of becoming a great writer, and 

 soon found a minor position on the staff of 

 The Youth's Companion. In 1871 he became 

 its editor, and it was truthfully said that The 

 Companion carried his name around the world, 

 for his energy, enthusiasm and personality 

 caused the periodical to grow in circulation 

 from 140,000 to 400,000 in the decade between 

 1877 and 1887. He was its editor until 1894. 



Butterworth's published volumes number 

 about sixty. Seventeen of these belong to the 

 Zigzag series, books of travel that combine 

 fact and fiction, in which he takes the reader 

 all over the world. These and his biograph- 

 ical and historical tales In the Boyhood of 

 Lincoln, The Wampum Belt, In Old New Eng- 

 land and others are full of charm and inter- 

 est to young readers. He also wrote numer- 

 ous ballads, cantatas and hymns, his Bird with 

 the Broken Wing being a popular Sunday 

 School song. Butterworth traveled extensively 

 in Europe and in America, and was in constant 

 demand as a lecturer. 



BUTTON, buf'n, a piece of ivory, bone, 

 metal or other material, usually round and 

 employed for the purpose of holding together 

 different parts of wearing apparel, or for orna- 

 ment. The name is derived from the French 

 word bouton, which literally means something 

 pushed out, and is appropriate in view of the 

 fact that buttons, to be useful, must be pushed 

 through what are called buttonholes. The 

 original use of buttons was only for ornament. 

 The robes of the Greeks and Romans were 

 kept in place by means of strings, girdles or 

 brooches, and it was not until more compli- 

 cated garments came into use that buttons 

 were employed as fasteners. 



As to the materials of which buttons are 

 made, it has been said that it would be hard 

 to find any material that has not been used 

 in their manufacture. Gold, silver, iron in 

 fact, metal of all kinds wood, paper, bone, 

 horn, shell, stone, glass, potatoes, vegetable 

 ivory, and even dried blood are among the 

 materials in daily use as buttons. 



Buttons are of two general classes; those 

 which are attached to the garment by means 

 of threads which pass through holes in the 

 buttons themselves, and those which have a 

 shank or loop of metal, or tuft of cloth, by 

 means of which they are affixed. In either 

 case the head of the button may or may not 

 be covered with cloth to match the material 

 to which it is to be attached. 



Pearl Buttons. One of the most important 

 branches of the button industry has for many 

 years been the manufacture of pearl but- 

 tons. The luster of the inside shell of the 

 pearl oyster has always been considered singu- 



BUTTONS FROM IVORY NUTS 

 (a-&) Ivory nut, with broken shell exposing 

 the nut; (c) partly turned piece; (d) white but- 

 ton ; (e) the same, sprayed with shellac; (/) 

 sprayed, developed and shellac removed. 



larly attractive, and soon after it was found to 

 be easily made into buttons the pearl-button 

 industry grew until it exceeded that of any 

 other kind. In the United States the industry 

 was handicapped because the shells had to be 

 brought from great distances and the cost of 

 production was therefore high. In the latter 

 part of the nineteenth century a substitute for 

 the pearl oyster shell was found in the "nig- 

 gerhead" mussel of the Mississippi River, and 

 the industry received a fresh impetus. These 

 shells are collected at all times, but those taken 

 during the winter are found most suitable for 

 button making. They are soaked for & few 

 days in clear, fresh water, are then cut to the 

 required sizes by drills, holes are bored, and 



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